SEATTLE — Seattle police and city park workers began clearing out Cal Anderson Park on Friday morning after a federal judge denied a request for an emergency temporary restraining order to halt the removal of a homeless encampment.
The camp — a combination of protesters and homeless people and those who identify as both — has more or less existed in the park since this summer, when it sprung up connected to the “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest” zone on the adjoining street. But when the zone was taken down by police, the camp stayed, resisting a series of efforts to remove it. Each time police remove protesters and campers, they have returned.
Police descended on the park before sunrise Friday, and by 8:30 a.m. the large camp was sitting empty after police had cleared protesters and homeless campers out. Seattle police arrested 21 people for a variety of reasons, including harassment, trespass and failure to disperse, according to an SPD statement.
Construction crews took down barricades and removed tents sections of the park, while a small group of protesters gathered to help homeless people move their things and chant at the police. Protesters held signs like “Housing 1st,” a reference to the idea that housing should be provided to homeless people before treating substance use disorders or mental illness.
The city had planned to clear Cal Anderson on Wednesday but held off after Seattle resident Ada Yeager filed for an emergency restraining order and more than 100 protesters gathered at the park. U.S. District Judge Richard Jones denied that request Thursday. On Thursday night, a Jeep Liberty parked at Cal Anderson was lit on fire with an “incendiary device,” a city spokesperson said.
“Mayor Durkan believes our City can have mutually shared values,” Rachel Schulkin, a Seattle Parks and Recreation Department spokesperson, wrote in an email. “Individuals experiencing homelessness should be in safer spaces like shelters and hotels especially during the winter, and our parks should not be places with illegal and unsafe conduct like fires, makeshift barricades blocking access to residents and first responders, or individuals who are threatening city workers conducting routine maintenance and breaking into city facilities.”
A camper who goes by the name Sunday has been living in the park since July — through six sweeps, she said — and slept through police announcements Friday morning to clear out. When she woke up, she said police were “chainsawing” the perimeter fence open and telling everyone their time was up.
“This one was a lot more militant than the last ones,” Sunday said. Some officers carried airguns with pepper balls, she said.
Sunday said she will likely check out a shelter nearby and then head back to Cal Anderson when the police are gone, like every other time police have swept.
“I wish people would stop politicizing the homeless,” Sunday said. “Just let us live outside. … people keep asking, what are our demands? Our demands are: give us housing or leave us alone.”
Craig Swanson, who owns the Oddfellows building across the street from Cal Anderson, wrote in an email that he used to walk his dog at the park during lunch, but the park has become “disgusting and intimidating.” But he doesn’t believe it’s up to the police to keep the park clear.
“It’s a city issue and I hope the city can offer those folks a reasonable option for the people who have squatted there while the rest of us can enjoy the park we all pay for,” Swanson said.
Schulkin said city employees will “continue to be present at the Park in the coming days as the City tries to reopen the park” in an email.
Quanshie Maxwell, who lives close to the park, took her daughter out Friday morning to show her what was happening, she said.
“It’s better to have her see it rather than me say it,” Maxwell said, as behind her, police chanted “move back” and pushed protesters up 11th Avenue, away from the abandoned encampments.
Maxwell has been homeless in the past, and understands the concerns of the neighboring businesses that have pressured the city to move on the people living at Cal Anderson, but says many people in the park are mentally ill and police action doesn’t help.
“What kind of intimidation is this?” she said. “It’s sickening. It’s sad.”
